A remark on Béjar & Kahnemuyipour 2017

Specificational subjects do have phi-features

Datos Bibliográficos

ID10141576
AutoresJutta Hartmann (0009-0008-4066-0130, Leibniz Institute for the German Language, autor de correspondencia), Jutta M Hartmann, Caroline Heycock (0000-0003-1615-6328, University of Edinburgh, autor de correspondencia)
Año2018
Volumen54
Número3
Páginas611-627
Fecha de publicación2018-03-06
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaJournal of Linguistics (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0022-2267 • E-ISSN: 1469-7742
EditorialCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0022226718000117
OpenAlexW2798044154
IdiomaFR
Citas recibidas5
Referencias citadas15

In a number of languages, agreement in specificational copular sentences can or must be with the second of the two nominals, even when it is the first that occupies the canonical subject position. Béjar & Kahnemuyipour (2017) show that Persian and Eastern Armenian are two such languages. They then argue that ‘NP2 agreement’ occurs because the nominal in subject position (NP1) is not accessible to an external probe. It follows that actual agreement with NP1 should never be possible: the alternative to NP2 agreement should be ‘default’ agreement. We show that this prediction is false. In addition to showing that English has NP1, not default, agreement, we present new data from Icelandic, a language with rich agreement morphology, including cases that involve ‘plurale tantum’ nominals as NP1. These allow us to control for any confound from the fact that typically in a specificational sentence with two nominals differing in number, it is NP2 that is plural. We show that even in this case, the alternative to agreement with NP2 is agreement with NP1, not a default. Hence, we conclude that whatever the correct analysis of specificational sentences turns out to be, it must not predict obligatory failure of NP1 agreement

Agreement · Icelandic · Linguistics · Physics · Plural · Sentence · Subject (documents · Computer Science · Linguistics and Discourse Analysis · linguistics and terminology studies · Mathematics · Philosophy · Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation